Infrastructure Investment Statistics 2026: Regional and Sectoral Breakdown

Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) investment in 2024 reached $100.7 billion, an increase of 16% from $87.1 billion in 2023, according to the World Bank’s PPI 2024 Annual Report on low- and middle-income countries. Broader infrastructure investment statistics point the same way: global private investment in infrastructure projects in primary markets increased by 10% to $380 billion in 2023, the World Bank’s Infrastructure Monitor 2024 reports.

Public budgets tell a less comfortable story. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) projects a $3.7 trillion gap between current planned infrastructure investments and what must be done to have the nation’s infrastructure in good working order. The sections below break the money down by sector, region and country, then cover US construction spending, energy, India, China and the AI build-out.

Key Takeaways

• China, Brazil, Malaysia, the Philippines, and India together attracted $71.4 billion, capturing 71% of global PPI investment in 2024.
• The US investment gap of $3.7 trillion is an increase from the $2.59 trillion gap reported four years ago, according to ASCE.
• US highway construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $150.6 billion in August 2026, 4.4% above August 2025.
• Energy led 2024 private infrastructure investment with $67.9 billion across 217 projects in developing economies.
• Data centers attracted over $9.2 billion across 18 projects in developing economies in 2024, a threefold increase from the previous year.
• China’s investment in infrastructure decreased by 4.0% year on year from January to August 2026.
• The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that capital flows to the energy sector are set to rise in 2025 to $3.3 trillion.

Editor’s Choice

• Private investment in primary-market infrastructure projects worldwide in 2023: $380 billion.
• Private investment in secondary-market infrastructure projects worldwide in 2023: $960 billion.
• US infrastructure investment needs across 18 Report Card categories: $9.1 trillion.
• US construction spending in August 2026, seasonally adjusted annual rate: $2,203.1 billion.
• India’s effective capital expenditure in 2026-27, budget estimate: 4.4% of GDP.
• Meta’s 2026 capital expenditure outlook, including finance lease principal payments: $130 billion to $145 billion.

Global Private Infrastructure Investment Statistics

• The World Bank’s Infrastructure Monitor 2024 shows that private investment in infrastructure projects in secondary markets decreased by 17% to $960 billion in 2023.
• Acquisitions saw a 43% decrease to $320 billion, a reflection of the impact of higher interest rates on reducing valuations.
• High-income countries experienced nearly a 20% increase in primary market infrastructure investment in 2023, while low- and middle-income countries saw a small decline.
• Total capital raised by infrastructure funds dropped by nearly half in 2023 compared to the previous year.
• PPI commitments of $100.7 billion in 2024 mark the first time PPI investment has exceeded the $100 billion threshold since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The number of PPI projects fell slightly from 324 in 2023 to 315 in 2024.
• The number of countries with PPI investment commitments declined to 58 in 2024, down from 68 in 2023.

Source: World Bank Infrastructure Monitor 2024, World Bank PPI 2024 Annual Report

Greenfield and brownfield projects kept growing while deal-making in existing assets shrank, which points to higher rates weighing on valuations more than on appetite for new building. The sector split shows where the new money went.

About This Data

Compiled from 13 source documents: 11 multilateral, central bank, statistics agency and company releases, and 2 engineering society reports. Coverage runs from March 2025 to October 2026. Sources qualify under our statistics methodology: official statistics, multilateral data, company disclosures and engineering society reports, with figures updated when those sources publish new editions.

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Private Infrastructure Investment by Sector

• Energy led with $67.9 billion across 217 projects in 2024, up from $63.7 billion in 2023.
• Energy made up 67.4% of 2024 PPI commitments.
• Information and communication technology (ICT) hit a record $10.5 billion, though spread over fewer projects than in 2023.
• Transport rose to $20.6 billion across 38 projects but remained well below historic peaks.
• Water declined to $1.3 billion, continuing its gradual downward trend.
• Energy storage, an emerging subsegment that the World Bank counts within energy, experienced a fivefold surge, mobilizing $12 billion across 22 projects, with the majority of this growth concentrated in China.

Recent Developments

• October 5, 2026: The US Census Bureau estimated that construction spending during August 2026 was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,203.1 billion, with public construction at $547.8 billion.
• January to August 2026: China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that investment in infrastructure decreased by 4.0% year on year, while investment in information transmission increased by 28.4%.
• August 5, 2026: Brookfield Asset Management, an alternative asset manager with over $1 trillion of assets under management, raised $10 billion for infrastructure, including $7.9 billion for its infrastructure flagship strategy, and brought total commitments to its AI infrastructure strategy to $5 billion.
• July 29, 2026: Meta narrowed its 2026 capital expenditure outlook to $130 billion to $145 billion, from a prior outlook of $125 billion to $145 billion.
• July 22, 2026: Alphabet reported Q2 2026 purchases of property and equipment of $44,924 million ($44.9 billion).

Private Infrastructure Investment in Developing Economies by Region

• East Asia and Pacific (EAP) reached $57 billion in 2024, an 11% increase from $51.4 billion in 2023 and 58% above the past five-year average of $36.0 billion.
• Three East Asia and Pacific countries, China, Malaysia, and the Philippines, together accounted for 53% of total PPI commitments in 2024.
• Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) saw investment commitments increase to $7.9 billion across 47 projects, a 133% increase from $3.4 billion in 2023.
• South Asia (SAR) saw investment levels decrease by 39% to $5.7 billion from $9.3 billion in 2023.
• The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) recorded a sharp decline, with investment commitments falling by 83% to $0.5 billion from $3.0 billion in 2023.

Private Infrastructure Investment in Developing Economies by Country

• China, Brazil, Malaysia, the Philippines, and India together attracted $71.4 billion, capturing 71% of global PPI investment in 2024, with China at 41% and Brazil at 13%.
• China received $40.8 billion in PPI investment commitments, 89% of which was channeled across 50 energy projects.
• This was driven mainly by the Fourth Channel of the Integrated Energy Base in Xinjiang valued at $14.3 billion.
• Brazil, China, and India together account for 59% of the total PPI over the past five years, 2020 to 2024.
• Six countries, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Türkiye, and Indonesia, accounted for 67% of private infrastructure investment in low- and middle-income countries between 2021 and 2024.

Measured against the size of each economy, the ranking changes completely. Sierra Leone committed 6.5% of its GDP to PPI investments in 2024, ahead of Mozambique with 3.4% and Angola with 2.8%. In small economies, a single port or power deal is large relative to national output.

Which countries are the largest international infrastructure investors?

None of the sources here ranks infrastructure investors worldwide. The World Bank’s PPI data covers private infrastructure deals in developing economies, where local sponsors have increasingly come to dominate PPI investments in low- and middle-income countries, while international sponsors continue to play a critical role. Sponsors originating from Spain, France, and China emerged as the leading international contributors in terms of total investment commitments, closely followed by sponsors from Japan, Canada, and the United States.

US Infrastructure Investment Gap

• ASCE estimates investment needs total $9.1 trillion for all 18 Report Card categories to reach a state of good repair.
• ASCE puts the gap at $3.7 trillion for 2024 through 2033 if Congress continues recent funding levels, against forecast public and private investment of $5.4 trillion over the same 10 years.
• The gap is 42.9% larger than the $2.59 trillion gap ASCE reported four years earlier.
• If Congress snapped back to earlier federal funding levels, ASCE puts the gap at a minimum of $4.4 trillion, a scenario rather than the $3.7 trillion current-funding gap. In that scenario, ASCE estimates $5 trillion lost in gross economic output over 20 years, 2024 to 2043, and a job loss of 344,000 in 2033.
• ASCE’s 2024 Bridging the Gap study calculated that American families would save $700 annually if Congress continues to act with recent investment levels.

US Infrastructure Report Card Grades

• The 2025 overall grade of C, an improvement over the C- in 2021, is the highest grade given by ASCE since it began its Report Card in 1998.
• Individual 2025 category grades ranged from a B for ports to a D for stormwater and transit, and nine categories still received a grade in the D range.
• Eight category grades improved over the 2021 report, while energy and rail received lower grades.
• Broadband is a new category added to the 2025 Report Card.

Source: ASCE 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure

What are the main types of infrastructure?

The answer depends on the classification used. ASCE’s Report Card covers 18 categories of infrastructure, from ports and roads to broadband and schools. The World Bank’s PPI database instead groups private projects into energy, transport, water and sanitation, municipal solid waste, and ICT.

US Public Construction and Road Infrastructure Spending

• Public construction spending was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $547.8 billion in August 2026, 0.2% above the revised July estimate of $546.8 billion.
• Highway construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $150.6 billion, 0.1% above the revised July estimate of $150.5 billion.
• Highway work accounted for 27.5% of public construction spending in August 2026. The eight types in the chart below add to $462.6 billion of the $547.8 billion public total, since the Census Bureau also reports office, health care, recreation and other public building types.
• Public construction was 2.5% above its August 2025 level, while total public and private construction spending of $2,203.1 billion was 1.7% below the August 2025 estimate of $2,242.0 billion.
• Public conservation and development construction was 28.4% above its August 2025 level.

By the numbers: Public highway and street spending ran at an annual rate of $150,610 million ($150.6 billion) in August 2026, against $144,279 million ($144.3 billion) in August 2025, according to the US Census Bureau. Even at that pace, roads keep a D+ on the ASCE Report Card.

Energy Infrastructure Investment

• The IEA’s World Energy Investment 2025 estimated that capital flows to the energy sector are set to rise in 2025 to $3.3 trillion, a 2% rise in real terms on 2024.
• Around $2.2 trillion is going collectively to renewables, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency and electrification, twice as much as the $1.1 trillion going to oil, natural gas and coal.
• Some $400 billion is now spent on grids worldwide each year, compared with around $1 trillion on generation assets.

Source: IEA World Energy Investment 2025

Why it matters: The IEA estimated that investment in the electricity sector is set to reach $1.5 trillion in 2025, some 50% higher than the total amount being spent on bringing oil, natural gas and coal to market. Power infrastructure now sets the pace for energy capital.

India Infrastructure Capital Expenditure

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) noted that capital expenditure will be maintained at 3.1% of GDP in 2026-27 (Budget Estimates, BE).
• The effective capital expenditure would increase to 4.4% of GDP in 2026-27 (BE) from 3.9% of GDP in 2025-26 (RE), where RE stands for Revised Estimates.
• Under India’s budget, Special Assistance as Loans to States/ UTs (with legislature) for Capital Investment has been extended with an enhanced provision of ₹2.0 lakh crore in 2026-27 (BE), higher than ₹1.5 lakh crore in 2025-26 (RE).
• Central government capital expenditure is budgeted at ₹12.22 lakh crore in 2026-27 (BE), a growth rate of 11.5%.

Source: Reserve Bank of India, Union Budget 2026-27: An Assessment

China Infrastructure Investment Growth

• China’s national investment in fixed assets, excluding rural households, was 29,309.2 billion yuan from January to August 2026, a year-on-year decrease of 7.2%.
• Investment in infrastructure decreased by 4.0% year on year, a smaller fall than the 7.2% decline in total fixed-asset investment.
• Investment in information transmission increased by 28.4%, and investment in intellectual property products increased by 9.2%.
• Investment in manufacturing decreased by 2.3% over the same period.

AI and Data Center Infrastructure Investment

• Alphabet’s purchases of property and equipment rose from $23,953 million ($24.0 billion) in Q3 2025 to $44,924 million ($44.9 billion) in Q2 2026.
• That is an increase of 87.6% in three quarters.
• Alphabet’s free cash flow was negative $5,855 million in Q2 2026, against trailing twelve-month purchases of property and equipment of $132,402 million.
• Meta’s capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $31.08 billion in Q2 2026, and Meta anticipates 2026 capital expenditures of $130 billion to $145 billion.
• Data centers, which the World Bank reports as an emerging subsegment rather than a separate sector, attracted over $9.2 billion across 18 projects in developing economies in 2024, according to the World Bank.

A single company’s quarterly spend now runs at roughly half of the World Bank’s full-year private infrastructure total for all developing economies, which shows how far digital build-out has moved the definition of infrastructure investment.

Infrastructure Funds and Private Capital

• From 2016 to 2022, infrastructure funds delivered average annual returns of 11.3%, with only a slight projected decline to 10.9% through 2028.
• This compares favorably to private equity and venture capital, where returns are expected to fall more steeply.
• Over 70% of infrastructure fund allocations are now directed toward core, core-plus, and debt strategies.
• Infrastructure debt has demonstrated stronger credit performance and higher recovery rates than non-financial corporate debt.
• Deals with guarantees see 80% private debt participation versus 42% in those without.

Source: World Bank, World Bank PPI 2024 Annual Report, Brookfield Asset Management

Key finding: Development and export finance institutions (DEFIs) provided $12.6 billion in direct debt support in 2024, double the $6 billion recorded in 2023 and well above the five-year average of $7.6 billion, according to the World Bank. Public lenders are carrying more of the risk that brings private capital into these deals.

Conclusion

PPI investment reached $100.7 billion in 2024, yet five countries captured 71% of it, and the US faces a $3.7 trillion gap in its own systems. The data shows private capital flowing toward energy, digital assets and the largest emerging markets, while public budgets in the US, India and China decide whether roads, water and transit keep up.

The next readings to watch are the World Bank’s next PPI release and whether AI capital spending keeps rising after the current guidance.